While You Are Away
by anotherweasley
Summary: Scully writes to Mulder in a journal during his disappearence.


While You Are Away  
By: Olivia  
  
"Thus, with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,  
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:  
Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write."-  
Sir Philip Sidney- "Astrophel and Stella"  
  
"Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation."-Laurence Sterne-Tristram Shandy  
  
  
Mulder:  
  
It has been about two months since you have been abducted and I realized that when you are returned to me (for I still feel you close to me even though I know you are far away) that there will be this gap between us like a cavern. I have come t despise this gap of time we are not together, which gets wider with each passing day. So I have decided to journal this time apart from you so that you can read and thereby know me, bridging this time stolen from us.  
  
I first want to apologize for your abduction. I should have never have let you go out to Oregon alone. I should have gone despite the supposed danger. I should have put all the pieces together sooner and realized that it was you they were after-not me. My mistake has cost you your life-and I promise you that I will find you. It is not only because it is the right thing to do, but also I need you back at my side.  
  
As you probably guessed my efforts to date have failed to find you. Skinner and I searched for you by means of Gibson Praise. We found him at a school for the deaf where he probably found some solace for a time. All of us realized what you had-the aliens were cleaning up the evidence and if we could figure out who their next target was we could find you. We found Gibson, but we lost you.  
  
And here I again destroyed the only piece of evidence to find you. The alien bounty hunter had Gibson. He had thrown me against a wall and the only thing I could do to save Gibson and myself was to shot him at the base of the neck. And there I killed him. When I shot him, I felt the shot just as if I had been shot in the heart. I destroyed the only hope we had of finding you. And here I sit in the comfort of my apartment, while you are far away from home and probably in pain.  
  
Another thing about this case, Mulder, is that we found your tombstone. I was so stunned with disbelief; I sat staring at it for hours. Skinner believes you would have told us if you had been dying. I on the other hand had my doubts which were confirmed when I saw the doctor's reports. It could just be evidence planted to make us believe the lie, but I keep asking myself why would they do a thing like that? What purpose would it serve them? I can come up with no rational explanation. Which only leaves, would you withhold this information from me and why? The answers are yes-to protect me and to keep me from being hurt. You should know by now, Mulder, I don't want to be protected. You were my greatest source of comfort and strength when I was dying of cancer. You saved me. I don't want to face your death any more than you do, but I refuse to be locked out of your heart. I want to go though this with you. We can work to find a cure together. A disease is something I know how to fight, you abduction I do not. Please don't keep secrets from me. We are stronger together. Our relationship ahs always been based on honesty, trust, respect, and above all the truth.  
  
The next piece of news I'm sure you are going to find as shocking as I did at first. Kersh has become the new Deputy Director and has assigned me a new partner-John Doggett. Realizing that Doggett could be a threat to his position, Kersh worked to discredit him. Kersh placed him as the task force leader assigned to find you by conventional means. When he didn't and included some mention of the paranormal, he was assigned to work with me as punishment.  
  
No one was more surprised and unwilling to make this change than myself-maybe perhaps Doggett as well. I didn't want to continue with the X-Files without you, but they are the only means to save you. I did not want a new partner, but there was no choice. To find you, he would have to be my partner. I needed to tell you this because I know how I would feel if when I had come back from being abducted I had found that you had another partner. I would have felt sad and betrayed that someone else had taken my place by your side. Luckily, I never had to feel that way and I don't want you to when you come back. Doggett is not you and I am waiting for the day when you return to fill up this gap in my professional, and personal, life, which is due to your absence.  
  
As for Agent Doggett, he reminds me a lot of myself when I was first partnered with you. He is not as young or as unseasoned as I was, but he is just as skeptical. Despite that, he is a good and honest agent from what I can tell who is just looking for the truth. I just have to teach him that the truth sometimes can be found in the paranormal and that the X-Files is not a hideaway to explain away any event by just labeling it as paranormal. You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that his first weekend before he started working on the X-Files, he read every report we had on file. I'm sure it's more that Agent Spender ever did when he worked here. Although in all fairness to Agent Spender, I'm sure had he been given the chance now, he would have read every single one of them.  
  
As you have probably guessed at this point, I have been force to become the believer. (You'd better be smiling when you read that). You'd better come back soon so I can go back to my skeptical self and we can keep our equilibrium. This new skin doesn't fit as well as my skepticism did but if I must believe in order to find you, so be it.  
  
My first case with Agent Doggett involved a creature (half man/half bat) that was killing people. I worried that I was trying to be too much like you in solving this case and that t I was looking for what wasn't there and had lost my objectivity. Doggett, even though he didn't always agree with me, respected my opinions. I find it uncomfortable that he thinks I'm an expert in the paranormal. I looked to you as an expert. Agent Doggett saved my life when the creature attacked me. Doggett was hurt, but not mortally. We think we killed it.  
  
The second case involved a parasite that a small-secluded town worshipped as a god. And that was when I did something incredibly stupid-I ditched Doggett in order to find out why someone was bludgeoned to death out in Utah over one weekend. It turned out that these people living in a small community were trying to find a suitable host for their "god" (a slug like parasite) and when it didn't work out they killed the person, extracted the slug, and put it in another person. I went to the town and they put on of them inside of me. Doggett eventually found me and cut the creature out before it reached my brain and killed it. It sounds a lot less painful than it of course was without anesthesia. I'm sure you would have chewed me out for putting myself in danger like that and not telling you. The truth of the matter is, were you still here, it would have been you dragging me out there over a weekend. And even if it had been me going out there we both know, as I'm sure Doggett did, that I never would have ditched you. I have decided not to ditch Doggett again as I'm sure you will agree.  
  
The latest case involved a child that disappeared ten years ago and just recently reappeared unaged. Eventually we found the child's abductor, or I guess I should say killer. At the end, the child disappeared and we found the child's skeletal remains. Doggett had a hard time accepting this case. I think he lost someone who was also abducted. It reminded me of you and I wondered what if it had been Samantha who had reappeared unaged just as this boy did. You would have been so proud of me on this case. I even interviewed the psychic who had been brought unto this case ten years ago and then argued with Doggett about the validity of what she said.  
  
Well that pretty much brings you up to date on what's going on so far. I will keep you updated as I progress with the X-Files. Agent Doggett is no you, but he is a good agent and I know you will like him when you meet him. He promised me that we would find you. I know we will. Just hold on Mulder. 


End file.
